Tangled Web
by Michael Hurley
Summary: The Sliders encounter a Quinn who holds the key to time travel, and possibly the nature of Sliding as well. But there's a side to it even he doesn't want to think about...
1. A Blundered Escape

CHAPTER 0 (Disclaimer)  
Sliders is the property of St. Clair Entertainment, the Sci-Fi Channel, Universal and Studios USA. This story is non-profit.  
*Historian's note: The following takes place in 1996 (2nd Season), soon after events described in the episode 'Greatfellas' but before the events in 'The Young And The Relentless'.  
CHAPTER ONE  
00:02:30  
  
Quinn looked up from reading the device in his jacket pocket. "Two minutes, thirty seconds," he whispered in Wade's ear.  
  
His friend looked to him and wordlessly nodded her head, then leant to quietly whisper this news to their companions Professor Arturo and Rembrandt. Before them, the prosecutor's lawyer was finishing up her case.  
  
"...and in summary," she was saying, "one can quite clearly see that the defendants are indeed guilty. This is unmistakable, given their unbelievable disregard and contempt for the law, shown in their interruption of what may have ended a war."  
  
She seated herself, and the Sliders' lawyer stood up. It was Ross J. Kelley, and on their native version of Earth he was a shyster lawyer who exploited the law to get his customers worker's compensation. This version of him, however, had proven quite competent in defending them.  
  
"Your honour," Kelley began, "It is quite obvious that these people had no idea what they were doing when they interfered in the nuclear launch. Their claim to originate from a parallel Universe itself cries 'insanity' - they can not be held for their actions in their current sta...."  
Quinn stood. "On the contrary, your honour, we hold ourselves completely responsible." He discreetly checked the device in his pocket: 00:00:47. "We interfered with the launch against the European continent because the war this country has waged on them is morally wrong. To kill so many people is a crime against humanity!"  
Arturo stood up beside him. "Not to mention the concept of using the Italian people as test subjects for the newly-invented hydrogen bomb. Such a thing happened on our own Earth and it is still remembered as one of the worst occurences in hist...."  
"Mister Arturo!" the judge yelled, slamming his gavel down. "You will desist in this ridiculous story of parallel...."  
Wade, now charged with the moment, jumped up and thumped the desk with her fist. "People won't stand for this! We're not alone! We're going to show them exactly how easy it is to defy your wrongful government and get away with it!"  
The judge sported a hint of a grin. "How so, Miss Welles?"  
"I'll tell you how so we'll get away with it," Rembrandt spoke up, as all four of them approached the bench and Quinn pulled the device out of his pocket. "By disappearing into thin air."  
"Please!" Kelley hissed to them as Quinn flipped open the lid of the machine in his hand. "This isn't helping!"  
Quinn glanced at him. "You're a great lawyer, Ross," he said as he extended his arm and aimed the device at the doors.  
  
The police guards began to move in on them. The device beeped, and Quinn turned a dial on its face. A translucent beam of energy lanced from the end of it and towards the doors, dissipating and then making space appear to fold in upon itself. The air and the doors became warped and distorted, and appeared to pour into a blue point of light which grew in size to resemble a huge vortex of energy, sucking blue streaks into its glowing depths. Everything around it looked warped and liquid-like.  
  
"I hope you'll continue to believe in our cause!" Quinn yelled to Kelley over the ensuing roar of the wormhole. Static electricity filled the courtroom, as did the faint smell of ozone.  
  
Wade took a running jump into the vortex of liquid-light, vanishing into its depths with a flash. Arturo leaped in after her, followed by Rembrandt. Quinn held up the device in his hand, its row of six zeros glowing red, and yelled over the roar "The people cannot be oppressed forever!" Then he, too, leapt into the wormhole.  
  
After passing into it, a flash of light met Quinn's eyes, and then he was in a twisting, rainbow-coloured tunnel, taking many twists and turns, before a point of light grew and became brighter, finally engulfing him. He emerged into reality.  
  
He was shocked to find, the others already waiting for him in similar surprise, that they landed in the same courtroom. This itself was not out of the ordinary - since they had traveled to a parallel Universe, it would make sense for them to be in an alternate version of the court - however, the same judge, the same jury, the same lawyers and especially the same Ross J Kelley were standing watching them, mouths agape.  
  
"Uh... did we just leave?" Quinn asked Kelley. The man nodded slowly.  
"We didn't Slide?" Rembrandt summed up what they were thinking.  
  
Quinn looked puzzlingly to the device, but before anything could be done, the courtroom doors burst open violently. Screams of a crowd could be heard outside, and an air-raid siren was sounding faintly in the distance.  
  
"Run!" a man screamed from outside the doors. He appeared, in his panic, not to notice the unworldly wormhole still open in the corner of the courtroom. "The Portuguese have launched against us!"  
  
He continued running, and the courtroom erupted in a display of absolute and pure panic. Everyone ran outside, and the Sliders were caught up in the crowd. They managed to find each other outside the courthouse, where everybody was looking into the sky. There, descending to earth, was what looked way too much like three nuclear missiles. Before Quinn could even think, the first missile plunged to the ground across the bay.  
  
He wanted to close his eyes but couldn't - watching instead, in amazing adrenaline-induced slow motion, as a shockwave of pure white light extended from the point of impact, the intense heat prickling Quinn's skin, and he waited for it to engulf them... before it suddenly vanished, instead to be replaced with the sunny Golden Gate Bay, a few clouds in the sky, and shoppers walking around a nearby food court.  
  
Wade fell to her knees. Arturo collapsed, unconscious, to the ground.  
  
"Whoa, you okay girl?" Rembrandt asked Wade as he caught her by the arm. He was still in somewhat of a daze himself.  
Quinn slapped Arturo lightly on the face a few times until he noticed the Professor stirring. "Are we dead?" he asked Wade and Rembrandt.  
Wade shrugged. "I dunno," she said, "I've never been dead before."  
Arturo's eyes opened, and he blinked furiously. "Everything's a funny blue," he said.  
"I think you were blinded a bit," Quinn said as he helped the large man up.  
"Are we dead?" Arturo asked.  
"Don't ask, man," Rembrandt said.  
"We don't think so," Wade told him. A few people were looking at them strangely, and she just smiled to get rid of them. "Did I just imagine a nuclear explosion?" she asked through clenched teeth.  
"I think not," Arturo said. "It certainly seemed real to me, I remember heat, but it was only for a short time - that was a close shave. Does anyone have any burns?"  
Rembrandt looked into Arturo's face. "Your nose looks nasty," he said. Indeed, Arturo's nose was a shade of pink, like he had a bad sunburn.  
  
The others noticed they had a few minor burns too.  
  
"We may have radiation poisoning," Rembrandt said, remembering his field training from the short time he spent in the Navy, the enrolment into which he'd always attributed to a bad acid trip. "Let's find a hospital."  
"Maybe we should find my double," Quinn offered. "My house should be near here - if it exists on this world. He could help us get to a hospital without us accidentally breaking this world's laws or something."  
Arturo nodded. "Although," he mused, "it certainly feels as if we landed upon the same Earth from which we departed - even if we inexplicably just left it again."  
Quinn checked the Timer, the device in his hand which told them when they would next have a window of opportunity to open an interdimensional wormhole.  
  
"Two days guys," he said.  
  
About ten minutes later, the Sliders assembled in Quinn's street. But the suburban Blue Jay Way they knew was now lined with the company buildings of several software companies. The address 4159 was written on a gutter in front of a building sporting a sign that said 'Digisoft'.  
  
"Looks like he doesn't exist here," Quinn said. "Let's look in the phone book just to be sure."  
  
They spotted a phone booth a few feet away, with a Green Pages hanging from the phone. Quinn advanced towards it and, stepping into the booth, almost completely vanished before hitting an invisible barrier and falling, now once again visible, to the ground.  
  
"Mr. Mallory are you alright?" Arturo asked him as he got up.  
"Yeah, uh... I'm fine. What did I hit?"  
Arturo stepped up to the booth's door, and extended his hand to touch the public phone. "From what I can see, nothing," the Professor confessed.  
  
Quinn extended his own hand, and the tips of his fingers became transparent, as they touched something solid.  
  
"Q-ball, man, get it outta there!" Rembrandt said.  
"Hang on Remmie," Quinn whispered.  
  
He traced his fingers across, then up the barrier. He moved them down and across, and they hit a protrusion. It was round, and felt like a door handle. He turned it, but it would not budge.  
  
"What is it?" Wade whispered.  
  
Quinn shook his head and, not exactly knowing why, produced from his pocket the key to his house back on his native Earth (he always kept it just in case, and particularly for just sentimental value). Holding it tight in his fingers, he found the protrusion again, found a small slit in it, and slid the key inside. It fit, and when he turned it, the door, or whatever it was, unlocked. He turned the handle and pushed. Feeling with his hand the now empty space before him, he closed his eyes.  
  
"Wait here," he said to the others, and stepped forward. 


	2. It's Like The TARDIS!

CHAPTER TWO  
When he opened his eyes, he was standing inside his house. Before him, seemingly impossibly, lay the kitchen, and to the right a set of stairs stretched to the upper floor where his bedroom was. He turned around to the door, and saw the other three waiting, worriedly.  
  
"Come on!" he said to them. But they obviously couldn't hear him, or see him or the house.  
  
He stretched out his hand, and the others jumped a little to see it. He made a 'come here' gesture with his fingers, then held out his palm.  
  
"Does he want us to follow?" Arturo asked.  
Rembrandt shrugged. "How? You just put your hand in there a moment ago, nothin' happened."  
"Wait a minute," Wade said, watching the disembodied arm. She took the hand, and followed the arm as it retracted into nothingness. Then she vanished.  
  
"What the hell?" she exclaimed as she and Quinn stood inside his house. "This is getting freakier every minute!"  
  
Quinn grinned excitedly and held out his arm to pull Rembrandt, then Arturo, through the mysterious front door.  
  
"It's like the TARDIS!" Wade said with a grin.  
"Close the door," Quinn told her in a hushed tone.  
  
Wade did so, and they explored the house.  
  
It was almost exactly the house they had Slid from, years ago, on Earth Prime. Except there were some additions: pieces of electronic equipment none of them could recognise, and layers of dust over most of the furniture (although the mess certainly confirmed the house was inhabited).  
  
"For a minute there," Rembrandt said with a sigh, "I almost thought we'd somehow come through some weird portal to Earth Prime."  
"Mom?" Quinn yelled. No response. He went back into the kitchen, leaving the other three in the living room.  
  
Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo suddenly heard footsteps come up from the basement. They wheeled around warily, as a man came up into the room. It was an alternate version of Quinn, wearing thin spectacles and with a few days' growth on his chin.  
  
"What?" he exclaimed. "What the hell are you people doing in here? How did you get in?!"  
Quinn came back into the room at the sound of the yelling. "Oh," he said to his alternate. "Hi."  
The alternate looked taken aback for a second, then pointed a finger at Quinn. "Ah. A projection? Of course, I've been working on it. What mistake did I make?"  
Quinn frowned. "What?"  
"Well you obviously came back because I made a mistake. Which factor did I miscalculate?"  
Quinn frowned again in confusion. "Uh... I...."  
"We are all visitors," Arturo explained clearly, "from a version of Earth in a parallel Universe."  
The alternate Quinn paused. "I'm sorry?"  
"This Quinn is an alternate version of you," Wade explained.  
The alternate Quinn looked not so much shocked as perplexed by this. He scratched his head. "Oh," he managed to say. "I though you were from the future."  
Quinn laughed nervously at the implication. "Well, uh, an easy mistake."  
"Well, it's a relief. I thought I'd made a mistake erasing the war."  
Arturo cleared his throat. "Uh... war?  
"Yeah," the alternate said dismissively, "the US-Europe thing. I prevented it once I realised the Portuguese were gonna launch nukes at the US. Oh why am I telling you, all you'd remember is the timeline I just created."  
"As a matter of fact," Quinn piped up, "we just narrowly escaped an explosion created by one of those Portuguese bombs."  
  
The alternate looked stunned.  
  
"We all got some burns," Wade put in. "Is there a hospital nearby where...."  
The alternate Quinn held up a finger, then went to a cupboard and removed a cream. "Apply this to the burns. They'll disappear within a few hours."  
"A cream?" Arturo almost bellowed. "Mr. Mallory we were hoping for some more adequate medical...."  
"No trust me, it works, it was part of the human genome project, revolutionized the world... well until the comet. But anyway. Only place it exists is in that bottle." He grinned. The Sliders noticed he was babbling, as they applied the cream to their burns. "Sorry," he apologised. "I don't get many visitors. Well, any. I do all the visiting these days. I... uh, well why don't you tell me exactly everything about this other Universe thing."  
"...and although the Timer hadn't finished countdown yet, we had to activate it to escape from the tornado and save our lives. Unfortunately, that kinda messed up its programming," Quinn was explaining.  
"The Timer's retrieval capability was lost," Arturo put in. "We couldn't Slide to our home Earth."  
"So, we rigged it to tell us when there was a weak gap in space-time that would allow us to Slide, and we've just been trying to get home since."  
"Amazing," the alternate Quinn said. "I'd never have thought it was possible. It sounds exciting."  
"Tell us about yourself," Wade said to him. "Why - how - do you live in a... a... cloaked house? What do you do? And what happened when we Slid here?"  
The alternate Quinn stood up and paced. He opened his mouth to speak a few times, then closed it. Finally he said: "My work is very important." He sighed, and rubbed his hands together. "Three years ago, I made a discovery. I discovered the existence of a sub-atomic particle that travels faster than light. Up until then, to the rest of the world, they were theoretical, and were called tachyons." He looked up.  
"We know of them," Arturo said. "At least, in theory. Go on."  
"Right. Well, now, you see, because they travel faster than the speed of light, they momentarily travel backwards in time." He sighed again. "When I learned... how to control these particles... a realisation dawned on me. I, in a sense, had invented time travel."  
"Can you explain this?" Arturo asked.  
The alternate held up a finger. "Yes, yes I can. You see, tachyons occur in nature, as I said, and naturally travel backwards in time - theoretically, therefore, producing minor natural changes in history as they do so - which, of course, noone notices. But, when I learned how to control them, I realised... that I can control exactly how far back in time they go. And, what they do."  
"How so?" Rembrandt asked.  
"Are you familiar," the alternate asked, "with the concept of the butterfly and the tornado?"  
The others shook their heads, but Wade nodded. "Yeah," she said. "The idea that goes, that if a butterfly flaps its wings, it could cause a tornado to start up on the other side of the world."  
The alternate clicked his fingers. "Exactly. Cause and effect, chain reactions. But, before I could even start experimenting with making temporal changes, I had to make certain I was protected against the timeline. It took some doing, months in fact, but I constructed an energy field around the house. This was just after Mom moved to Florida, by the way," he told Quinn. "Anyway, this barrier shields the area of the house from the effects of changes in the timeline. In a way, creates a separate bubble that doesn't adhere to normal space-time. Everything inside this house is original to how everything was before I began changing history. Well, except for things I've brought inside from the outside world. With the help of some advanced technology I acquired after accelerating Earth's technological level, I programmed it so that only my genetic material, and something in physical contact to it, can enter. That's how you guys got in."  
"A bubble," Quinn repeated. "That may be why we experienced a sudden change of events when we landed here."  
"You mean the explosion? How so Q-ball?" Rembrandt asked.  
"The womhole stays open for around a full minute after we exit it," Quinn said. He emphasised with his hands: "We're in the Universe where Portugal attacks the US," he says. "Then, we Slide. At around the same time - well, relative to us and him - this Quinn changes the course of history, erasing the attack. We Slide, and land in the brand new Universe created by his actions. Now, for the sixty seconds while the wormhole is open, for some reason, we're shielded from the effects of the change. For us, nothing has been altered, this world seems identical to the last. But then, once the womhole closes, we're no longer protected from the changes, and so we begin experiencing the new reality he's created. Calm Bay, people shopping, sunny sky."  
"We may," Arturo mused, "have experienced for the first time in history, a natural Slide: we shifted from the doomed San Francisco into this one."  
The alternate Quinn was silent for a while. The colour seemed to have drained from his face. "Are you telling me," he said slowly, "that the version of reality I just changed... that you experienced that? As a parallel Universe?"  
Quinn tilted his head. "Well... yeah."  
The alternate Quinn swallowed nervously. "So... the entire west coast of America... they still all died." He stood up and stared out his window, at the street. "This is just a different reality, where that didn't happen."  
"Well... yeah."  
"Last month, I altered history to allow for the invention of the atomic bomb, in order to save Earth from a comet. Are you telling me that I created a new Universe where that worked, but that the original people... the original Earth... it's all gone?"  
Arturo sighed. "From what we've been able to gather, from our perspective," he said, "naturally occurring tachyons travel, every so often, back in time to make small, almost imperceptible changes. Most likely through chain reactions, like you said. Until now we were never sure, because we never knew whether particles like this existed."  
"Quinn," Quinn said to his double, "whenever you change history... you're creating artificial Universes."  
The alternate Quinn said something, but it came out as a croak. "No," he repeated. "That's bull. You can't know that for sure."  
"Quinn...." Wade said to him.  
"My work," he almost yelled, then whispered, "is very important. I... I have saved the world... this world... a thousand times. And no-one will ever know. Don't I deserve some kind of thanks from these people?" He seemed to have begun babbling again - the Sliders noticed he wouldn't stick quite completely with one tpoic.  
"Mr. Mallory," Arturo offered, "what you do is incredibly noble. But it's not the job of one man. You cannot be God. You cannot... hold the world on your shoulders like Atlas held the sky. It's impossible."  
"It's not impossible!" Quinn yelled. "I'm doing it! It's what I'm destined to do!" He noticed they were a little taken aback. "I'm sorry," he said quietly. "Like I said, I... I haven't had any visitors for quite a while."  
  
Wade got up, and hugged the alternate Quinn. He stiffened, and then held her until she moved away.  
  
"Thanks," he said genuinely. "You know, I... I haven't seen Wade for months." He sighed. "You guys, uh... well, Mom's old room, and the guest room, you're totally welcome. How, uh, how long are you...?"  
"About two days," Quinn told him.  
The alternate nodded. "Right, right okay. I need to do some research tomorrow. You're all welcome to join me. Uh... hey look I've never met a mirror version of myself, but while you guys are here, you might as well call me Mallory. To avoid confusion." The others nodded. "Well, I'm gonna turn in. Quinn I'll guess you know your way around the house. Goodnight."  
  
And with that he went upstairs, leaving the Sliders.  
  
"Poor guy," Rembrandt whispered. "Can you believe the pressure."  
"You have to face it," Quinn said quietly, "he's done a lot for this world."  
"Yes," Arturo said. "But, at what cost for the other worlds he's created?" 


	3. The House That Didn't Exist

CHAPTER THREE  
Surprisingly, the Sliders found an assortment of delicious-looking foods in Mallory's refrigerator. Two or three times while they were having dinner, they heard something bang or smash upstairs.  
  
"He's havin' a hard time," Rembrandt observed.  
"Like you said, there's a lot of pressure." Quinn cut himself a leg of chicken.  
"But," Wade said, "changing history so many times, being responsible for the whole world all these years... are we sure he's sane?"  
"I dunno," Quinn said. "Theoretically, he should be exactly the same as me... at least up until our paths diverged, that is when he started exploring time travel."  
"It would be fascinating to study exactly at which point your paths did diverge," Arturo said. "It would be the most recent we have as yet observed in any of our doubles."  
"Wait a minute," Rembrandt said. "Are you implying that we are split from this Universe? Earth Prime's just a chip off this world's old block?"  
Arturo shrugged. "It would seem that's possible."  
"Depending on what percentage of the total Universes are natural and how many he's created," Quinn said, "this may be one of the oldest versions of Earth in existence. Ours, and all the ones we've ever visited, may well be split off this original."  
Wade frowned. "That makes me feel kinda...."  
"Inferior?" Rembrandt offered.  
She nodded. "Yeah. Like, so I'm just... a copy of this world's original Wade."  
"Hey," Quinn said with a reassuring smile, "we never feel sorry for people we think are copied from us - don't worry, I think in the grand scheme of things, every world is a copy of something."  
"So you see," Quinn said, holding a basketball up to Mallory, "this is your world." He indicated several tennis balls on a desk. "These are a certain number of Universes that already exist alongside it. Now," and here he picked up another basketball, "you make a change in history. That change produces a new Universe." He touched the balls together, then moved them apart to demonstrate. "And so on. Most likely, even we are copies of originals on your world."  
Mallory stared at the balls for a time. He went to say something a few times, then finally shook his head. "I dunno...."  
Quinn felt he was pressuring his double a little, and he wasn't sure of his stability. So, instead of pressing the issue of stopping his time travel, which was his aim, he said instead: "Why don't you show us how you do it?" He recognised the glint of excitement in his double's eyes at the idea of showing off his invention - noone else would notice. It was the same expression his face wore when he introduced Wade and Arturo to Sliding.  
"Sure," Mallory said, nonchalantly. "Come on into the basement."  
  
As they filed down the narrow stairs into the house's basement, the Sliders - especially Quinn - noticed several differences. The rag-tag shamble of gadgets and spare parts that formed his own basement (and presumably, until a few years ago, this version as well) was now replaced with sleek, wonderfully expensive-looking, high-tech equipment. Most of it even Quinn and Arturo couldn't figure out.  
  
"What is all this stuff, Mr. Mallory?" Arturo asked in awe.  
"Oh," Mallory said, "uh, this. Well, it all technically doesn't exist."  
"What do you mean?" Rembrandt asked.  
"This is all technology I acquired during times in which my temporal changes had accelerated the technology of Earth. But all the versions of the world that I got these gadgets from, well I erased them for one reason or another. Comet, nuclear disaster, you name it. I've had to re-do every change so far." He noticed Quinn eyeing a small handheld computer. "Its a kind of scanner," he told Quinn. "And microcomputer. It holds eight hundred terrabytes of information."  
"Terrabytes?" Wade inquired, being the group's computer expert. "As in, next up from gigabytes?" Mallory nodded. "In that?"  
"Hey, I don't invent it. Well, I sort of do. Well I'm kinda respons... well anyway."  
"What about this?" Arturo asked. He was inspecting a kind of control panel in the wall.  
"Don't touch that!" Mallory almost yelled.  
"What is it?"  
"It's the main reactor, for the house. It generates the shield, electricity, all that. Much less complicated than running off the outside world's electricity."  
"We talkin' nuclear here?" Rembrandt exclaimed.  
"Sorta. More like cold fusion. But not quite. After all the changes I've made, that technology there is the cleanest and most advanced. The technology destroyed the entire Solar System three times before I managed to ensure it was never invented again."  
Wade blinked. "That's terrible," she managed to say.  
"Is it safe?" Rembrandt asked.  
"Oh, yes," Mallory said. "The destruction was caused by much larger reactors."  
"What made you start?" Arturo inquired. "Why did you make your first change?"  
Mallory gave a wry laugh. "Oh, the start. How I wish I'd never done it." He took a deep breath and sighed. "It seemed so very noble back then. It was partly as an experiment. You see, I sent back a series of tachyon particles, their time of arrival specifically calculated to... prevent the invention of the atomic bomb."  
Arturo raised an eyebrow. "Seemingly," he mused, "very noble indeed."  
"Yeah," Quinn said. "For about a year, I didn't perform any altering of time. I studied the changes in history, and was just happy to live in a world where the most destructive weapon in history had never been invented. But," and here he rubbed his hands together again, "Everything changed after a while. An asteroid was detected at the edge of our Solar System. It was estimated to impact with Earth within several months, and no known weapon could deflect it. So, before it could get any worse, I undid my previous alteration. The entire populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were once again wiped out, but... at least the six billion people of Earth were safe."  
"My god," Wade said. "The asteroid world! One of the first we Slid to!"  
"I'm sorry?"  
"We've been to that world," Quinn said. "Well, rather, the version of this one, where you un-invented the nuclear bomb. It must've branched off from this Universe, when you undid the change."  
"We saved them, by the way," Arturo said with a distinctive hint of pride in his voice. "With the help of Mr. Conrad Bennish, we invented the nuclear bomb and destroyed the asteroid."  
Mallory blinked. "Bennish?" He repeated in shock. "Bennish saved the world?"  
Arturo frowned. "Well, not single-handedly."  
Quinn clicked his fingers. "We couldn't find my alternate on that world. But in his basement, we found his videotaped diary... he was talking about wanting to invent time travel!"  
Wade nodded. "I remember! He wanted to go back and visit... the dinosaurs."  
Mallory and Quinn both smiled sheepishly. "A childhood fantasy," they said in unison, and then laughed.  
But Mallory's laughter suddenly stopped. "After that," he said solemnly, "everything began to get complicated. I suppose it only seems that way, because I was now shielded from the effects of my changes." He paced nervously once more. "The reinvention of the atomic bomb inadvertently sparked first contact with an alien race."  
"What?!" Arturo said.  
Mallory paused. "It sparked first contact with an alien race," he said as if it was the most natural thing in the world.  
"Are you serious?" Wade asked.  
Mallory appeared irritated at having been interrupted. "Well, yeah!"  
"Where from?" Quinn asked. "What did they look like? What did they do?"  
"Well if you let me finish," Mallory snapped, "I'll tell you!"  
"Sorry."  
"So anyway. They were from a planet orbiting a star known to us as Vega. They're... well, kinda short-ish... look sorta albino. Big eyes. Cute fellas. The United Arab Emirates destroyed their main spacecraft."  
"What? Why?"  
Mallory shrugged. "Apparently they represented evil, or opposition to God, or something. We never really got to find out the reason."  
"Why not?" Arturo asked.  
Mallory looked at them like they had been under a rock for forty years. "Well, they wiped out the entire Middle East in retaliation."  
"Good lord."  
"So then the United Nations threatened to take action... the aliens scoffed at it, in their way, but... Earth's weapons were far superior to theirs - when all put together. Almost every single one of their spacecraft was destroyed. I redid the course of events... just after the President announced the official invasion of their planet, using their salvaged technology. Still makes me feel kinda queasy when I think about it. I've thought about creating the first contact situation again, and doing it properly, but really I've been keeping that idea on the backburner."  
"That's horrible!" Wade said.  
"What is?"  
Wade frowned. "What you just told us."  
"Hm? Oh, yeah... well, you know humans. Unfortunately seems the aliens are just as stupid."  
  
The Sliders decided not to take this as an offence.  
  
"So what happened after that?" Rembrandt asked earnestly.  
Mallory stroked his stubbly chin. "Er... the second comet I think... no, hang on it was the tidal wave, that's it. Only covered San Francisco, but I got rid of it anyway. Shouldn't have, 'cause that made way for that war... man, it was a nasty one...."  
"They tend to be," said Arturo.  
"...I think that was the one where they ended up engineering the spiderwasps in the eighties. I'm not sure. So many things," Mallory was continuing. "Every time I do anything, something worse happens. If I'd never started, would everything be okay? Or would the outside be the same as it is now?"  
"I guess it's hard to tell," Wade said.  
Mallory buried his head in his hands. "After years of doing this," he said, "I'll bet you're wondering if I'm stable. Aren't you?" The Sliders exchanged glances. "Yeah well I wonder that myself too," he continued. He sighed, and then reached for his jacket. "It's time for me to go and check out this new world, see if there's anything that needs doing and if there's any technology I can use. You guys wanna come?"  
He seemed to have forgotten about showing the Sliders how his technology worked. But, for the moment it seemed they should just check him out for a while. "Sure," said Quinn.  
Mallory dug around in a drawer and brought out some sunglasses, which he handed to Quinn. "Try not to stand directly beside me anywhere," he advised, "that way the fact that we're the same person shouldn't be noticed. The rest of you... just try not to meet your own copies." 


	4. The World Outside

CHAPTER FOUR  
The outside world was one of the more pleasant the Sliders had visited. Low pollution, happy people, well-managed government and a very favourable economy.  
  
"How on Earth do you manage to calculate your changes, Mr. Mallory?" Arturo asked him.  
Mallory gave a little laugh. "Long nights," was all he said. Then he added, "I'm always glad when a new version of the world sports an efficient news service. I don't know how I'd get info otherwise."  
  
Their first stop was the Doppler Computer Superstore. Despite all the changes this/these world/s had undergone, Michael Hurley was still the manager. They agreed Wade should try and look inconspicuous, in case her double worked here.  
  
"Eighty-three gig hard drives," Mallory was mumbling as he looked through some computer packages. "Looks like a tech level of three or four."  
"Level?" Rembrandt repeated.  
"Yeah, I have a technology scale, one to ten. One's the equivalent of the nineteen fifties, ten's a few hundred years in advance of what we're used to. I got my reactor from a level seven." He noticed something about the computer. "Memory Stick drive," he said. "For this price, judging by the country's current economy this makes it look even better. Either that or Silicon Valley's gonna run out of mining area pretty damned soon." He tapped his fingers on a desk. "I need to find out about research into quantum physics." He pulled a cellular phone out of his pocket.  
"Hey," Rembrandt said, "if this tech level varies, how you know a cell phone's gonna work?"  
Mallory frowned at what seemed to him a silly question. "Well, I always carry a networked holographic comm," he explained, holding out his wrist upon which was a small device, "and in case of a low level I always carry some quarters."  
"Oh." Rembrandt looked sheepish. "Makes sense."  
"May I make my call now?" he asked. Without waiting for an answer he dialed a number and was obviously pleased when it was picked up. "Professor Bennish?" he asked. "Hi, my name is Jim Bryans and I'm from the Weekly 'Frisco. We're doing a little article on the strength of science fiction plots and we were having some trouble with some scientific background research. Yes. Well someone at the office recommended your number. Well, specifically we were wanting to find out what a Risio particle is. Uh-huh. Really?" He gave a chuckle. "Well, I'm glad we found out. Okay I'll be sure to pass that on. Thankyou for your time Professor." He hung up.  
"What was all that?" Wade asked.  
"They haven't even discovered Risio particles," Mallory said with a shake of his head. "Nothing useful for me here then. Let's head to the newsagency, get a paper."  
  
They began to head out of the store.  
  
"What's a Risotto particle?" Rembrandt asked.  
"Risio. They speed up and strengthen physical reactions."  
"Like enzymes do for chemicals?" Quinn asked.  
"Well yeah."  
Quinn scratched his head in thought. "Wow."  
  
  
At Bernie's Newsagency, Mallory purchased a copy of USA Today, and immediately flicked to page forty-three. He grinned and pointed at the page.  
  
"Not there. Great."  
Arturo was beginning to tire of the Sliders having to ask Mallory everything, but he asked anyway: "Who?"  
"Evans. Owen Evans. It's, uh, kinda hard to explain... he's always on page forty-three, reported of having died in a bus crash, on every single world where the Sanford Virus breaks out. Don't ask me why."  
"Well. That's good then. What exactly does the Sanford Virus do?"  
"Well," Mallory said, "it infects humans... lays dormant for about a month, and then, suddenly..." he made little claws with his hands. "...It just one day starts eating away all your flesh." He looked around at the others' horrified faces, and laughed. "Nah, I'm kidding! It infects part of the brain and causes paralysis. That in itself isn't the problem - I mean it's pretty obvious how it affects the multimedia industry, and then has political repercussions."  
  
Quinn frowned and really, really didn't know what the hell his double was talking about.   
  
"Of course," he said.  
"So, this world looks pretty good," Wade said hopefully. "Think maybe this time you've got it right?" She winced, hoping she hadn't hurt his feelings with the comment.  
Far from looking offended, Mallory just shook his head. "No way to know." He flicked through the newspaper. "The war never started. That's good."  
"What was it about, anyway?" Rembrandt asked.  
Mallory shrugged. "No idea. No-one knew, actually."  
"Typical," commented Wade as they began walking back to Mallory's house.  
  
When they got back to the phone booth, someone was using it. They waited politely.  
  
"Damn," Mallory said, "people use this thing at the weirdest times. Just last Tuesday I had to literally throw this guy out of it to get inside before a flood." He grinned, but then his face suddenly fell, realising what this meant if it was true he had just been making new dimensions: that version of the guy was now probably dead.  
  
Finally the person hung up and left. Mallory reached into the booth, they heard the sound of a door being opened, and hand-in-hand they all vanished into nothing.  
  
"Don't forget to close the door," Mallory said. He made a spooky face. "It's really creepy open."  
  
Wade, who agreed wholeheartedly, closed it quickly as someone approached the phone booth.  
  
"Quinn," Quinn said to his double, "we have to talk."  
"What?"  
"What you're doing has to stop."  
  
Mallory inserted his fingers into his ears and, humming, walked into the kitchen.  
  
Arturo rolled his eyes and followed. "Good god man! Don't just shut us out you know we're right."  
  
But the double closed his eyes too, and started singing loudly 'I'm Henry the Eighth I Am'.  
  
Yell and yell as they might to persuade him to stop his time-altering, Mallory paid hem no attention. Finally Wade slapped him. He lowered his hands.  
  
"How dare you!" she screamed, as angry as the Sliders had ever seen her. In fact, Rembrandt took a step backwards. "You selfish bastard! You think you can do what you like just 'cause you can justify it!"  
  
Her teary eyes shining in the light, she looked to her own Quinn and ran out the kitchen and upstairs.  
  
The Sliders and Mallory looked at each other. Not caring how much power his double may hold, Quinn gave him a look that could melt titanium. Then he left to follow Wade. Mallory collapsed to the floor. A little unsure of what to do, Arturo and Rembrandt watched him.  
  
"Come on, my boy," Arturo said and heaved the shaking Mallory to his feet.  
"What've I... what..." Mallory mumbled.  
  
Arturo and Rembrandt led him to a couch.  
  
"Poor guy," Rembrandt whsipered to Arturo. "This really is some funky sh...."  
"You're so... so... thick!" Wade said.  
"Huh? Me or him?" Quinn asked.  
"All of you. All your doubles. Oh, you can make any kind of scientific breakthrough... but you're all so thick! All for different reasons...."  
  
Quinn knew what she meant in regards to himself - he knew that in romantic situations he wasn't quite up there with the best of them, but now was hardly the time.  
  
"We may have to make him give this up forcefully, you know," he told her. She nodded. "I don't know how though - I mean, the guy could wipe me out of existence."  
"Not as long as you're in this house," she pointed out. "We're protected."  
"True." Something clicked in his brain. "That's an idea!"  
"I had an idea?"  
"What if we shut down this bubble of his?"  
"I'd like to," Wade said. "It gives me the creeps. You ever seen out the window?"  
"No... all the curtains are drawn."  
  
Wade pulled aside a curtain. It made his eyes hurt - the outside world, from in here, looked... well, fractured. Mainly he could tell he was seeing through into the Digisoft office building that occupied this space in the 'outside' world. But there were things where they couldn't be - people who weren't people - colours that didn't exist. He reached out and closed it.  
  
"Youch," he said. Despite the situation, they both laughed.  
"You're saying if we shut down his bubble, he'll just be one of the locals again? Without even any knowledge of what he's done?"  
"No, he'd still remember. But this house would be gone. Along with all his equipment."  
"Can we do that?"  
"He's messing around in something he shouldn't. He didn't even know about parallel universes."  
"Neither did you," Wade pointed out quietly.  
Quinn paused. "I'm not saying we're any different. If someone could make it so we never Slid, I'd gladly accept it." He smiled. To be honest he wasn't sure that he really would. 


	5. Stranded

CHAPTER FIVE  
Late that night, Mallory having gone upstairs, the Sliders all talked.  
  
"I dunno, man," Rembrandt said, "maybe he will do it voluntarily after all. I mean, look at him. He's a wreck - he seems to realise what he's doing."  
"I disagree," Arturo said. "Quinn is unstable." He paused and looked at Quinn. "Sorry, my boy. This man is unstable. I don't think we should rely on his help. I think the best thing to do is shut down his contraption, and get the hell off this world."  
"How long 'till we Slide?" asked Wade.  
Quinn flipped open the Timer. Its display lit up. "Six hours."  
Arturo clapped his hands together and stood up. "Better get moving then."  
  
It took them the best part of three hours to actually make sense of what made Mallory's generator work, and the rest of the time to work out how to operate it.  
  
"We can't just switch it off," Arturo said nervously. "The energy buildup would be too much, we could wipe out the whole west coast. We need to take it down slowly. Level by level. Now we've only got a few minutes, so we'll have to do it a little tiny bit more quickly that I'd like...."  
"What are you doing? I trusted you guys!"  
  
The Sliders turned to see Mallory at the top of the stairs.  
  
"We can't let you play god, Quinn," Quinn said. "You can't let yourself, either. No one person can handle it. We have to go soon, but before we go we wanted to help you...."  
"Help me? No one can help me! Only I know what has to be done! You can't do this!"  
"You can't stop us," Rembrandt said.  
  
Mallory ran down the stairs and lunged into Quinn, knocking him hard against the wall. Then he ran out of the basement.  
  
"The Timer! Quinn cried.  
  
Without further explanation needed, the others headed straight after Mallory, Quinn following. When they got upstairs they found the front door open.  
  
"We've only got a few minutes!" Quinn yelled. "Hurry!"  
There were a few screams when the four people emerged running from the tiny phone booth. Spotting Mallory at the end of the street, Wade ran as fast as she could, appearing to plan to tackle him. But just as she approached, the wormhole formed and he leapt straight in. She skidded to a halt and waited for the others.  
  
"C'mon!" she cried. "It's closing!"  
  
But it was too late - as they reached her, the wormhole began to shrink closed. Soon there was nothing there.  
  
"My god," Arturo whispered.  
"He's gone," Quinn said.  
"And with him the Timer!"  
Rembrandt bit his lip. "What do we do now?"  
"I still don't get why he did it," Wade said as she clutched her mug of coffee. "What reason was there? He was so passionate about all this..." she waved her arm at the basement. "Why would he just abandon that?"  
"Perhaps," Arturo offered, "he wished to see if we're really right. But where he expects to go once he finds out, I have no idea."  
"Look, guys," Quinn said with a sigh, "the good news is I think we can build a Sliding machine. The bad news is I think we can. I don't know for sure. Even if we could it may take us years. It took me at least that long to come up with the foundations I had before inventing Sliding. It took a lot of preparation, time, money, and several accidents before I was even close to solving antigravity - before it turned into Sliding."  
"Wait a minute," Rembrandt said. He grinned. "Guys, something just happened we'd need a time machine to prevent. Well, haven't we got one?" Quinn grimaced. Arturo joined him. "Haven't we?"  
"He never even told us how the thing works, Remmie," Quinn said. "I can't even begin to imagine how it does. I mean, we'd have to calculate, to the molecular level, where to place an assortment of minute particles and how to somehow make them have an effect on a person or object nearby."  
"Well, he's done it."  
"Yeah, have you noticed how burned out he is?" Wade pointed out.  
Rembrandt frowned. "It's better than nothing."  
"I just realised something," Wade said. "I think I know why he did it."  
"Why?" Quinn asked.  
"To give us no choice. He thought that if he Slid, leaving us stranded... we'd have no choice but to use the very technology we were trying to stop him from using."  
Quinn smiled thinly. He looked to Arturo, who had a similar expression. "It seems as if we do have no choice."  
Arturo shook his head. "My boy, why do you have to be so bloody ironic."  
"Professor, it looks like we're in luck!"  
"What is it Mr Mallory?"  
  
Quinn pointed to a particular piece of equipment. "This should be very helpful. It seems that my double created some sort of imaging equipment that uses the tachyons like a radar. It picks up the rebound of their radiation."  
"My word, inegious! That would give us a crude, but nontheless effective picture of the actual events we're working with. Going by his notes, that must be what the lowest tachyon classification is for."  
"Classification?" Quinn looked at the notes Arturo was holding.  
"Yes, they describe the force of the sent particles," Arturo elaborated. "A large amount of particles has the highest physical effect. An explosion, a wind, an object moving... the smallest has a negligible effect. There is only a zero point zero one percent chance it will affect anything. It seems to be designed for the observing. He did mention the concept of using the particles to create a projection of an image - he mistook you for one - but there's no mention of it here."  
Quinn sighed. "But we're still not sure how to actually do it. From what I've worked out," and here he walked over to what looked like a large cylindrical tank, "this is a sort of a particle accelerator, except on a smaller scale. He's been using it to create the tachyons in the first place, to store them, and finally to send them back."  
Arturo donned his glasses and examined it carefully. "It's attached to an electromagnet or some sort. Looks like he's containing the particles mangetically, much like they do with antimatter at Fermilab. Except, of course, they use a device several acres wide." He put his finger to his mouth in thought. "I'll bet anything he's changing their speed to determine the time they emerge in, and switching off the containment to fling them there. As to how he creates them in the first place..." He chuckled. "I'd love to know!"  
Quinn checked his watch. "I hope Wade and Remmie get back soon, I really want to test all this, and not have them completely different people as a result."  
Wade and Rembrandt were exploring this San Francisco - Quinn had cut some of his hair and given it to them to ensure they could get back in the house if they needed to. As his double had said, the security system would only allow Quinn's genetic material, and something touching it, to enter.  
  
"Smell that fresh air," Rembrandt said. "This is one of those nice worlds."  
"I'll say," Wade agreed.  
"Happy people, no poverty... and no Lottery to keep down the population."  
"Don't remind me," Wade muttered, remembering the situation on the last idyllic world they had visited.  
"So, if what Q-Ball says about Earth Prime being an offshoot from here is true, then this world should be almost exactly the same as home, shouldn't it?"  
"Originally, yeah... but take into account all the changes his double's made. It's almost unrecognisable. Look." She pointed to the Bay.  
"No Golden Gate Bridge," he said in disbelief. "Now that's a first! At least on a modern world. How the hell do you get across?"  
"It's a ferry service," Wade said with a grin. "Come on, let's go down and have a ride."  
  
They hurried down the hill to where Wade had spotted the jetty. There a ferry was taking on its last few passengers.  
  
"Hi!" she said to the ticket vendor. "Uh, how much for two returns?"  
The man didn't answer her. Instead, he looked directly at Rembrandt. "Good morning sir."  
Rembrandt frowned and looked to Wade, then the vendor. Okay, he thought, don't rock the boat. It always works differently. "Uh, yeah, hi, how much for two returns?"  
"Twenty-seven dollars," the man replied pleasantly. Rembrandt handed him thirty, and he gave them their change. "Have a nice day, sir, miss."  
  
The two walked from the booth and then burst out laughing.  
  
"What the hell was all that about?" Wade said.  
"Maybe they've got a problem with equality of the sexes," Rembrandt said.  
"Or maybe he was just an idiot."  
  
They came to the short line and waited. Wade fiddled with her ticket and noticed something.  
  
"Remmie... this is a child's ticket."  
Rembrandt took the ticket and looked it over. "Hey, yeah. Should we go back and tell him he made a mistake?"  
"Maybe he didn't."  
"You think it might be an age thing?"  
"Maybe... it's interesting."  
  
A man ripped their tickets as they stepped onto the ferry.  
  
"Have a nice trip, sir, miss," he said.  
"Okay, I've worked out something for the test at least." Quinn ran his fingers through his hair and pointed at his equations. "Remember that woman we saw picking up the phone, about two hours ago?"  
Arturo nodded - they had been watching people in the street outside for quite a while, looking for situations to occur that they could alter as a test. "What of her?"  
"Right, well, I sent back a group of observation tachyons. It seems as though that car is hers." He pointed at the blurred, purple scan to a small hatchback parked across the street. "I had a look inside its alarm system."  
"We can do that?"  
"I just moved the particles. It took a while, but it was pretty easy." He brought up a new image, showing the wires and circuitry inside the car's alarm system. "If we cause a surge in this little part here...." He pointed to a piece of soldering. "It'll trigger the alarm."  
"Thus getting her attention, and getting a reaction from her."  
"Hopefully."  
"Do you think we should wait for Mr Brown and Miss Welles?"  
"I'm not sure - what do you think? It's just a test."  
"Let's do it then."  
"Alright." Quinn typed some commands into the computer, and the large cylindrical machine in the corner began to whir. "Beginning the synthesisation..." He brought up a display. "The observation particles are still active at the time they exist. Seeing as it's the time we're aiming for, we can watch events as they occur - so to speak. Alright, the particles are made... setting acceleration... destination..." He typed in a complex series of commands and codes, then looked to the screen. "Sent."  
  
They watched the garbled and warped purple scan intently. The outline of the woman stepped into the phone booth, picked up the phone, and then suddenly looked in the direction of her car. Since the particles couldn't pick up any sound waves Quinn and Arturo assumed the alarm had sounded. She hung up the phone and dashed across the street in the direction of her car, at the exact point a station wagon slammed into her.  
  
Quinn's mouth hung open. Arturo stared at the screen, his hand frozen where it had previously been stroking his beard.  
  
"Oh, God," Quinn whispered.  
  
The two of them rushed to the door and flung it open, watching through the phone booth. Out in the street, an ambulance was just leaving - and not in a hurry. Some bystanders were still around, talking about the woman who was hit by a station wagon two hours ago.  
  
"Professor... can we undo that?"  
  
Arturo didn't answer, because he didn't know. 


End file.
